and please use their services
What to charge?
- Thread starter side5wipe
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- Gary
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I find that a good guide is to click on any image on the Alamy website and then go through the pricing dropdown boxes to get a quote for the specific use. Alamy would take half the revenue if the customer was buying the image from there, so you could offer a 50% discount and everyone should be relatively happy.
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- Jonny
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Not exactly constructive...
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Agreed
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- James
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Why would you offer them bespoke, relevant images for half the price of generic stock?
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- Gary
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I don't see them a bespoke - it doesn't appear that he was commissioned. It appears that he has taken them, they have been seen, he has been asked if they can be used. The going rate for "generic stock" is what the market will pay. That is dictated by manly by the agencies who sell them. The photographer will see less than half of the sale.
If the photographer doesn't know how much to charge, he could open an account with Alamy / Corbis etc, tell the buyer to go through the buying process of selecting the picture's use, paying Alamy £100, and then only seeing £45 of the sale.
I see that, advising the bloke to use the market sellers as a guide for the value of a picture, as good advice. By giving his customer the option of cutting out an unnecessary middle man, (in those circumstances) and giving his customer the best value, the photographer creates exactly the same income from the pictures.
How is that devaluing stock photography?
What are the other options? "The Race Team" turns out to be Yamaha Inc, the picture is featured on their home page in every territory worldwide for the next 3 years, and the poor bloke gets screwed over by forum advice of "just charge him a tenner, that's what I got last time....etc..etc..etc.." type of replies.
I stand by my post - find out the value of the image by using industry standards. What he does with it from there is up to him.
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I can understand what he's saying.
If Alamy charge the client £100 and take 50% commission, to then only charge £50 direct isn't you getting the same amount for your image at the end of the day, it's your image selling for 50% of it's previous value.
You've devalued your image and started a race to the bottom with regards to the price point for that type of image. It's devalued the image because the client is only paying half the price.
It's not rocket science, you just need to look at it from the client's position. Because that's the only person in the chain whose perception of the value of stock photography is worth a dam.
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edited - duplicate
Last edited:
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I advised the photographer to use the site to get the price, not his customer.
When he knows what the market value of each picture, and what commission he would see from selling it through the agency, he could offer the pictures at the best price for his customer without ripping them off, or getting screwed over himself. I am not suggesting he discounts it to the customer from the ouset, just use the market value vs income as a guide.
I stand by my advice.
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If the client valued photography, they would commission a professional for the event @ £250-£400 for the day plus expenses. Instead, most will trawl flickr after an event and then offer silly money to people who don't know the value of their pictures.
In response to "It's devalued the image because the client is only paying half the price" The image doesn't currently have a fixed value, the photographer doesn't know what to charge.
The fact that his customer can twice as much for the picture is totally irrelevant when the photographer is the one that will lose out if the client does!! It does not get away from the fact that he will make MORE money selling direct / wholesale / straight from the supplier - whatever you want to call it, without having to factor the cost of retailers / distributors / agencies.
"Turnover for vanity, profit for sanity."
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- James
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True, bespoke was a poor choice of words. Still, they are images that aren't available to all and sundry on a stock site, and very likely much more relevant than those that are. (What's the chances of them finding images of their team on a stock site)?
Determining the price based on what's available in the market is fine; proceeding to sell for half that for no reason seems pointless to me. Especially when you have the hassle of dealing with the client, tracking usage and following up on expired licences - ie all the stuff the agency would do for you, hence the fees.
Never said it was. But I do think it's underselling himself, and potentially creating more unrealistic expectations for the client when they deal with other photographers in the future.
I don't think offering to licence images after the event suggests that they don't value photography. If they're wanting a decent number of images, it may show they don't fully understand how photographers work - as there's a good chance they could get more for their money if they did commission someone rather than individually licencing after the event.
But finding out what to charge/what the image is worth, and then charging half of that because you have more work to do than if you sold through an agency...
How will he make more money selling it direct if he discounts the agency fee; leaving him with the same amount of money?
Yes, profit is sanity, and volunteering to make the same money for more work could be classed as insanity. (Or just being needlessly generous).